Paleo Food List: What You Can and Can’t Eat On the Paleo Diet

The paleolithic diet is a controversial one, mainly for its basis in a few debatable theories, the most important of which being that modern humans are adapted to the diet of early humans from the Paleolithic era, and that our genetics have not changed since then. As such, a paleo diet consists of food that would have been naturally accessible to early humans, ruling out all processed foods and other products obtained only through technologically advanced agricultural means.

So what is there left to eat for those who have chosen a paleo diet, in this modern day and age? Stick with this guide, and we’ll go over the extensive paleo food list for people who have chosen this diet for themselves, including food both approved and disapproved for this literally ancient diet.

Five Food Groups vs. Paleo Food List

Most of us are familiar with the five major food groups, as put forward by the US Department of Agriculture. These five groups, consisting of proteins, dairy, fruit, vegetables, and grains, are meant to categorize the different types of food necessary for people to maintain a healthy and balanced diet. If you subscribe to the supposed health benefits of the paleo diet, then the USDA’s food pyramid goes out the window. Well, the grains and dairy do at least.

Paleolithic humans did not consume dairy or grains, because they were living in a pre-agricultural era. Milking undomesticated animals was out of the question, and milling grains was not even a concept. We’re talking the hunter-gatherer era, here. The only things on the table were meat, fruit, vegetables… plus some healthy helpings of seeds, nuts, and paleo approved oils and fats. No grains (cereal or legume!) and no dairy.

Why Go Paleo?

So you might be asking why ditching dairy, grains, and certain types of other foods matters at all in a modern human’s diet. Well, according to the research the paleolithic diet is based on, these foods cause inflammation inside the body because they were never meant to be consumed. According to the paleo diet’s guidelines, modern humans are still built in accordance with the diet of our ancestors, who were hunter-gatherers without the agricultural means to harvest and process many of the foods we eat today.

Cutting foods like that from our diet will help with weight loss, increase fat burning, increase immunity, reduce allergy symptoms, increase energy, alleviate depression, eliminate joint pain, reduce blood pressure and levels of cholesterol and triglyceride, reduce heart disease, diabetes, and certain types of cancer, reduce bloating and other intestinal distress, alleviate symptoms of disorders like Celiac’s disease and other autoimmune issues, and allow for more restful sleep and all around better health.

That’s a lot to promise! Whether or not you’re up for testing the advantages of the paleo diet is up to you. Continue on below for the full paleo food list.

Paleo Food List: Approved Foods

People following the paleo diet are allowed to eat paleo approved meats, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and oils/fats. Let’s start with the meats!

Paleo Approved Meats

You have many options when it comes to paleo approved meats, as long as the meat is fresh and unprocessed. If it’s meat you could have obtained and prepared out in the wild, without any kind of processing or technically advanced means, it’s fair game. These include:

Bacon

Bear

Beef jerky

Bison

Bison jerky

Bison ribeye

Bison sirloin

Bison steaks

Buffalo

Chicken breast

Chicken leg

Chicken thigh

Chicken wings

Chuck steak

Clams

Eggs

Elk

Emu

Goat

Goose

Grass fed beef

Ground beef

Kangaroo

Lamb chops

Lamb rack

Lean veal

Lobster

New York steak

Ostrich

Pheasant

Pork

Pork chops

Pork tenderloin

Poultry

Quail

Rabbit

Rattlesnake

Reindeer

Salmon

Shrimp

Steak

Turkey

Turtle

Veal

Venison steaks

Wild boar

Paleo Approved Fish and Seafood

Fish is a great source of protein because it’s low in fat, plus it’s full of healthy omega-3 fatty acids. See below for a list of paleo approved fish and seafood, such a shellfish.

Bass

Clams

Crab

Crawfish

Crayfish

Halibut

Lobster

Mackerel

Oysters

Red Snapper

Salmon

Sardines

Scallops

Shark

Shrimp

Sunfish

Swordfish

Tilapia

Trout

Tuna

Walleye

Paleo Approved Vegetables

Nearly all vegetables are allowed in the paleo diet, except for legumes and beans, which are sometimes considered vegetables, many of which are technically grains. There are a ton of different types of vegetable, which you can learn about in this guide, but take note that the linked guide includes legumes and beans. If you’re on a paleo diet – again – you can not eat legumes or beans. Some paleo approved vegetables include, but are not limited to:

People on the paleo diet should consume about one to three helpings of fruit a day, but not overdo it. Even though fruit is healthy and packed with micronutrients, it’s also high in fructose. You won’t be getting any high fructose corn syrup on a paleo diet, since it’s highly processed, so natural fructose is not a bad thing. You still don’t want to consume too much sugar though, even naturally. Prioritize vegetables over fruit, but when you do eat fruit, here’s a good list to choose from:

Nuts and seeds are a good, supplemental source of protein, but they’re also high in fat. Paleo diets allow nuts, but that doesn’t mean you necessarily need to eat them – like fruit. It can be tough to figure out which nuts and seeds are paleo approved, though. For instance, some foods commonly referred to as nuts – such as peanuts – are actually legumes, which are a type of grain disapproved by the paleo diet. Yes, that means you can’t have peanuts on a paleo diet. We’ll cover some disapproved paleo diet foods later, but for now, here are the nuts and seeds you can eat:

Almonds

Cashews

Hazelnuts

Macadamia nuts

Pecans

Pine nuts

Pumpkin seeds

Sunflower seeds

Walnuts

Paleo Approved Oils and Fats

Fat isn’t terrible for your body if you consume it in moderation. As mentioned before, it’s overly sugary, starchy foods like carbs that you want to avoid in excess. Fats are still necessary for the body to create energy. Plus, you need it if you want to cook! Below is a list of paleo approved oils and fats.

Avocado oil

Coconut oil

Macadamia oil

Olive oil

Some people on the paleo diet will consume grass fed butter, even though butter is a dairy product that is not part of the paleo diet. It’s a tough call, but if the super convenient product that is butter is too difficult to remove from your diet completely, then that’s ultimately your choice to make. There’s no diet police that’s going to come knocking on your door telling you that you’re doing paleo wrong, so have at it if you need to.

Paleo Food List: Disapproved Food

Below is a guide to the foods not part of a conventional paleolithic diet. Most of the foods you need to know about and have to choose from are listed above, roughly, but if you’d rather be safe than sorry, use the list below to double check. Remember, in general, the paleo diet excludes:

Dairy products

Sugary fruit juice

Soda and other soft drinks

Energy drinks

Grains and legumes

Processed meat

Snack food

Unnaturally salted food

Candy

Dairy

Butter

Cheese

Cottage Cheese

Cream cheese

Frozen yogurt

Ice cream

Milk

Powdered milk

Pudding

Skim milk

Yogurt

Fruit Juice

Remember, it’s okay to juice fruits that are paleo approved, but the paleo diet does not allow sugary and processed fruit drinks that are contain unnatural flavors, sweeteners, or enrichments.

Apple juice

Cranberry juice

Grape juice

Mango juice

Orange juice

Soft Drinks

Soda is even worse than fruit juice, since it’s a highly unnatural beverage made from carbonated water, and completely packed with high fructose corn syrup, sugar, and artificial sweeteners. Stay away from soda of all kinds!

7-Up

Barq’s Root Beer

Canada Dry

Coca Cola

Coke Zero

Dr. Pepper

Fanta

Ginger ale

Mountain Dew

Pepsi

Root beer

Sierra Mist

Sprite

Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are even less paleo than soda, if there was a scale measuring that…

Five Hour Energy

Monster

Red Bull

Rockstar

Vault

Grains and Legumes

The most extensive list of unapproved paleo diet foods are the grains, legumes, and associated products. These might be the hardest to remove from your diet, but they are also the most important to do so, since according to a paleolithic diet, they are highly unnatural. Take note, the following list is not all inclusive.

Adzuki Beans

Beer

Black beans

Bread

Cereals

Chickpeas

Corn

Corn syrup

Crackers

Cream of wheat

Fava beans

Garbanzo beans

Green beans

High fructose corn syrup

Kidney beans

Lentils

Lima beans

Mesquite

Miso

Mung beans

Oatmeal

Pancakes

Pasta

Peanut butter

Peanuts

Peas

Pinto beans

Red beans

Sandwiches

Snowpeas

Soybeans

String beans

Sugar snap peas

Toast

Tofu

Wheat

Wheat Thins

White beans

Other foods and beverages like alcohol, candy, and processed meats like deli meat and spam speak for themselves.